


take me home tonight

by Lywinis



Series: Lo(v)er - Carve it in the Bridge: A Reddie ficlet/one-shot listing [13]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Derry High: Senior Year, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, M/M, Pining Eddie Kaspbrak, Pre-Slash, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24022831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lywinis/pseuds/Lywinis
Summary: Eddie's not drunk. He's not. Tipsy, maybe.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Lo(v)er - Carve it in the Bridge: A Reddie ficlet/one-shot listing [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686373
Comments: 2
Kudos: 68





	take me home tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bearfeathers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearfeathers/gifts), [birkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birkin/gifts).



> Anonymous said:  
> For the prompt thing Richie asking Eddie “How much have you had to drink?”
>     
>     
>       
>     
>     'Cause you make me feel
>     Like I'm more than a friend
>     Like I'm the journey
>     And you're the journey's end
>     I may never pass this way again
>     That's why I want it with you, baby
>     
>     We may never pass this way again
>     
>     - Seals & Crofts, _"We May Never Pass This Way Again"_
>     
>     
>     
>     

“Enough, fuck off, Rich.” Eddie sways, unsteady on his own feet. “What's it matter?”

“Well, because your mom'll freak out if you come home like that, for one,” Richie says. He smells like smoke, even to Eddie, who's probably two sheets into being three sheets to the wind. “For another, you're barely standing, dude.”

“Fffff—” Eddie sways toward Richie, who catches him with his big hands and Eddie wants to scream. He wants to throw up. He wants— “Fuck you.”

Richie laughs. “All right, that's enough for you.”

“You're not the bartender. You can't cut me off,” Eddie says, taking a swipe at Richie, who only counterbalances him to keep him upright. It was unfair. Ever since junior year, Richie's been unfairly tall and is broadening out into a guy who's going to be packed with lean muscle, if he can ever stop eating like absolute garbage. Eddie doesn't think he ever will.

It was unfair to have a crush on a guy who unironically tried to sport a mullet in junior year, until his mother had gotten wind of it, and had cut his hair herself. It was unfair to still have a crush on goofy Richie Tozier. A guy who wore the nickname Trashmouth with a twisted sort of pride.

It was unfair to not want it to end at all, Richie catching him in his orbit whenever he got the chance.

“I don't give a fuck what my mom thinks,” Eddie says, and that's more true now than it ever has been. It's been building since he broke his arm, buzzing beneath his skin like an itch he couldn't quite scratch. Fights, loud arguments that culminate with Sonia's soft weeping and Eddie's seething rage, it's too much to think about right now.

The night air is cool on his face, and he realizes Richie has somehow frogmarched him outside, one arm around him. Of course Eddie had gone where Richie led him, that had always been his downfall.

“Where are we going?” Eddie asks.

“I'm gonna take you home—to my place, Eds,” Richie says. “You need to sleep this off, and then we'll say you had a sleepover at Bill's. Your mom never freaks out when it's Bill.”

Eddie snorts.

“What? Am I wrong?” Richie says, pausing to light a cigarette one-handed as he escorts Eddie to the beaten up old pickup he drove around town. Eddie doesn't even complain about the smoke, so Richie must know he's pretty toasted.

But Richie does have a point. Sonia never complained about Bill Denbrough. She might, though, if she mistook the hero worship he had for Bill for...what he feels for Richie. The too much- _too big_ - _ **too everything**_ feeling he had when he was with Richie. The thing he should push away and shove _down_ , _**down**_ , _**down**_ , but he doesn't _want_ to.

“I don't wanna go back,” Eddie says.

“Well, we can't stay here,” Richie reminds him.

“We can go to the field out by the Barrens,” Eddie says.

Richie's eyes are unreadable as he puffs a coal onto the end of his cigarette, his face lurid in the cherry-red light. Eddie thinks he might have given himself up, but then Richie shrugs.

“Sure, Eds. I got the sleeping bags in the back still.”

The ride out to the field is relatively quiet, Richie smoking, eyes on the road, and hands at ten and two. Eddie's buckled into the passenger seat, the radio blasting tinny honky-tonk from the one radio station that reaches this far. Eddie's head is pressed against the window, the cool glass soothing the burn of his overheated face.

Richie gets them set up on the hill, pulling the parking brake with a loud, ratcheting noise when he stops the truck. They could see Derry from here, if they bothered to look, but Eddie tries not to look. Instead, he tips his head up to the sky, full of stars. So far from big cities, they blanket the sky like a swirl of spilled gemstones, and Eddie still can't fathom how a place like Derry could be pretty sometimes.

Richie pulls the sleeping bags from the back and unrolls them in the bed, making them a makeshift nest in the bed of the truck. Eddie is slowly sobering up, and he manages to make it around to the back without help as Richie hops up on the tailgate, pulling off his shoes.

“You good?” he asks, face the vague outline of nose and mouth and those impossibly thick glasses in the dark.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. He wants to kiss him. He doesn't. He climbs up onto the tailgate, pulls off his shoes, and crawls into the sleeping bag, crowding in Richie. Richie turns on his back and Eddie immediately sprawls out beside him.

“The stars always look different out here,” Richie says. “Like you could touch them.”

Eddie huffs a noise of assent. “Yeah. I like coming out here.”

“Me too,” Richie says. He reaches over, tugs Eddie closer to his side, and for once, Eddie doesn't fight it, curling up against Richie.

He has time. They don't graduate for a couple of months. There's still time to figure this out. They're not going to be here forever. He can already feel the itch to travel starting below his skin.

Eddie wonders briefly, before sleep claims him, if the stars look different somewhere else.

**Author's Note:**

> This one kinda got away from me. I don't often write teen!Reddie, unless I want something in context with modern times, because it's not what I'm fixated on for the ship. Regardless, I hope you enjoy, Constant Readers.


End file.
